That funny ornament!

I have this amazing friend named Christine. Here's a picture of the two of us: Except, you can't see our eyes. How about this one: Except, she hates that picture because she lost a lot of weight after that, but that's all I have of the two of us, so here's a great picture of just her! She's beautiful, huh? Well, Christine is adopted family. She treats my kids like they are her grandkids and me kinda like a daughtery sorta best friend. I love her. We get together every Monday night for Family Home Evening and trade off with going to her house and mine. This week was the week to be at my house. Our activity was tree decorating. The tree turned out beautiful, see.... Christine knows that all the ornaments in our collection are special, lots are homemade, but all of them are sentimental for some reason or another. We have, homemade photo ornaments, like these:
We also have ones other people have made us, like this one from my friend Sallie who has passed away. I never took off the wrapping or her gift tag. Sentimental.
And ones that aren't even traditional for a Christmas tree, like the Star of David because in my daughter's preschool class was a Jewish boy, they celebrated the customs and religious differences of all people, and Leila made this in her class. I keep it on my tree to remind my kids to appreciate the differences of others. Some funky ones too, like this one that Christine pulled out and wondered what in the heck it was, but knew it must go on the tree because, you know, they're all special and sentimental. It's the Inn. Where Joseph tried to get a room for Mary. I made that ornament, and I love it! She put it on the tree. Then she pulled this one out of the ornaments box. She looked at it quizzically. She turned it over a time or two and with a shrug of her shoulders, she placed it on the tree.

I watched it all happen. It was only a few seconds and she was going to go on to the next ornament when I erupted in laughter causing quite the confusion amongst all of my kids. Christine knew I must have been laughing at her because of that funny ornament, so she laughed too, not knowing why. So...all the kids wanted to know what was so funny. Did you know it's hard to talk intelligently when you're busting a gut? Well, I finally stopped laughing long enough to show them the new and strange ornament that was placed on the tree and the waves of laughter started all over again. I said, "Christine wins the prize for my LOL of the day!" I took the light tester off and put it in the Christmas tree box and we finished decorating with smiles on our faces and Christmas in hearts....

But later after Christine had left and I couldn't' stop smiling about that funny ornament. I went and pulled the light tester out of the Christmas tree box.....and I put it back on the tree. It's a great memory after all, just like all our other ornaments. Sentimental!

Dork Files

My husband is one of the smartest people I know. He writes computer books, creates software, makes iPhone applications, knows random stuff, has an answer for everything...he's just got a super great brain. He's also real cute and loves me, so I married him. It was a wayyy step up for me. In the deal he got someone who really appreciates that he's extra humanly smart, can boost his ego every day, someone nice and funny, nurturing and other good stuff I hope, but just...not that smart. So I'm constantly having him solve all of my technical issues and using him as my own live-in, walking, talking wikipedia. This morning when trying to figure out why my iPhone won't do this or that and how do I make it do this or that- he had answered a series of, oh, I don't know how many questions when he finally takes a deep breath and says, "Honey, I can't be THAT essential to your existence!" I scowl of course and tell him, "too bad, you are, deal with it!"

So... later after he has gone to work I couldn't find my phone. I knew Rob and I had been looking at it together when he was answering all those questions for me. I was trying to remember where it was and when I couldn't find it, I figured I'd text him, you know, to ask him where it was. Uhhhhh....processing kicking in here....yeah, see....I couldn't do that because, um, well, I didn't have my phone. Mmmhmmm, that's that not so smart thing about me that I have going on. (That and that 5 kids have really done some serious damage to my brain power. And I recently entered my forties...oh, I've got all kinds of excuses)

Anyways, since my hubby is so dang smart, I am constantly looking for ways to stump him, outwit him, know something before him, find something he doesn't know, or my heck, just prank him because he usually is unprankable, unstumpable, unoutwitted, and knows the punch line to every joke before I can deliver it!

Yeah, I italicized usually because today I GOT him!

Once I found my phone, I thought I'd send him the text I thought of anyways. Just to see if I could catch him off guard.

Here's the exchange:

Me: "ROB! Where's my phone??? U had it last!"
Him: "Check my table. I think u had last. U showed me u couldn't publish YouTube, I looked, and handed back."
Me: "Dork! GOTCHA!"
Him: "Huh?"
Me: "I texted you from my phone, duh! Dude, are you serious?"
Him: "Oh yeah...I feel dumb!"
Me: :D ahhhhh, totally made my day!"

LOL for the day goes to him! Oh yeah, it's gonna be a good day! :)

Conversations with Milly Mae

This 12 year old Mallory child of mine has a big personality. Not at all girly, bordering on brute. Outdoor horseback ridin' girl. laughs a lot, reads a lot, practices conversational randomness, hums, whistles, constantly plays her trombone mouthpiece when not playing her trombone, walks through life unaffected by anyone or anything else. You can't help but love her. It's hard to describe what conversations are like with her. I took her to my friend Shanna's salon yesterday to get a haircut. Shanna also happens to be Mal's YW leader at church. She had to wait for Shanna to finish coloring my hair so she could get her hair cut while my color was processing. She was bored and did the most random things...turning off lights, using Shanna's scissors to cut off hairs on her arms, opening all her cabinets and drawers, asking why she had each thing in the room, commented on what was unnecessary to have in the room. I had several LOLs during that time, but could not begin to tell you all the conversation that happened throughout....It was funny in context and because she is non-stop.

But here's a small conversation exchanged that happened this morning so you can get a glimpse of what conversations are like with her. She came and got in my bed. It was a clue that something was wrong with her. Usually she gets a running start and comes and cannon balls onto my bed (or at least it feels like that... and if you think she has the sense to check for arms and legs in the way, you are wrong). "I have a tummy ache," she says. Both of her sisters do too and they are all squished in around me telling me their woes and their needs. It ends with...."I'm thirsty now Mommy!" I say, "I'm trying to get up, but y'all have me all sandwiched in and I can't get out of bed. I'm like the cream part of the oreo." Mallory says, "You're the good part that everyone eats. We're the cookie part that everyone throws away, nobody likes us. But at least we don't get turned into poop." Nice. What is it with my family's obsession with feces and the air around them? Anyways, the first LOL of the day goes to her!

Mystery Item in the Pantry

This is my first time adding a photo to a blog post. Let's see if I'm awesome or not?

So, I put this item in my pantry 3 1/2 weeks ago and forgot about it. Today I was cleaning out the pantry and found it. And stared at it for a few minutes thinking, what in the world have the kids put in my pantry. I studied it for a while and then it dawned on me what it was. My first LOL of the day. It's the cotton candy that we brought home from Ollie Koala's for Leila's birthday party. My kids actually always consume their cotton candy on the spot so I've never had an opportunity to see cotton candy like this. I wouldn't let Leila have it then because she had had so much sugar that day, so I put it in the pantry to save for later.

LOL #2 of the day was when I showed it to Leila and asked her if she recognized it. "No, what is it?!" She was excited to know the identity of the mystery item too. When I told her she immediately started crying. Then I got in trouble for laughing. She had forgotten about it too, but when the obvious reminded her of her missed opportunity for a sugar high, she immediately shriveled up and melted in tears. ok, that was going too far, don't you think?

Dinner and UNO and Air de la Poop

I LOL'd 5 times yesterday.

#1 So, I heard Rob trying to corral children into the house from the car. They get very poky and linger sometimes. "Come on, get in the house." (some wait time) "Let's go, I don't want to stand out here all day." (some more wait time) "Run" Camie, who has had some trouble with a sprained ligament in her knee says, "Dad, you know I can't run." Rob says, "Sorry about your physical limitations, now let's go."

#2 My 7 year old was eating dinner when she suddenly donned a pouty face. My sister asked her, "What's wrong with the Leila-belle?" Leila answers, "I'm trying to eat all my black-eyed peas so I can get dessert." My sister, "AJ" (for Aunt Jennifer) responds, "But you're almost done, you only have a few left, just scoop 'em up with your rice and they'll be gone." Leila pouts some more, "but there's a squishy one in there that's all messed up." AJ- "Well, just pick that one out, you don't have to eat the squishy one." Leila, in her forlorness- "But that means I'd have to dig through the whole pile of rice. I don't even know where it is!"


#3 (Going to copy from my husband Rob's Facebook status because it says it all)-"Last night at the dinner table, Jacob belched. On his way to his timeout, he pooted. Camie said, "What's the big deal about burps and poots? They're just air." Jacob explained, "They're air that's been touching poop." I laughed so hard I not only cried, I sweated. I guess I'll never grow up. Sherry here again- this went on for a solid 5 minutes of uncontrollable laughter. Even our parrot caught the wave of laughter.

#4 After dinner the 7 year old pronounces that she can say, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt 10x very fast without laughing. I give her my attention and tell her to go for it. She's pretty good. I ask if she wants me to time her and she gets super excited and serious about doing her best. 22 seconds. My 15 year old says, "Let me try." ok- 15 seconds. He starts bragging that he beat her. My 12 year old with her dry wit humor says very unceremoniously and kind of monotone, "woo hoo- you beat a 7 year old saying John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt"

#5 We were playing UNO last night as a family. I was sitting next to Rob. After several times of either reversing play on him, making him draw 2 or skipping him, he turns to me all smug and says, "Clap your own butt shut." (Sorry to my mother-in-law for our potty mouths) Rob and I both looked at each other with a look of disbelief, "I can't believe I/you just said that in front of our children!" We both knew instantaneously that it would give license to our children to repeat it gleefully. And they did, LOUD with Cheshire grins! You're maybe wondering what that even means.... There's some history here. Back when Rob and I were first married and before children (so over 17 years ago) during a playful argument and me having no good retort said, "well, clap your own butt shut." Rob tilted his head, lowered his eyebrows in perplexed amusement and said, "what does that mean?" I didn't know, it just sounded like a good come back. Ever since, when trying to get in the last words, that's what we say to each other, but NEVER in front of children. I mean we have kept that a private conversation for 17 long years! Alas, no more, being shown up in UNO put our private famous last words on display to be immortalized by our children. And if you knew our children, you would know they jumped at the chance to mock that and add it to their repertoire of distasteful things to say.

Reviewing my laughs makes me realize that they are probably only funny to me. And probably are things that 'you had to be there' for. Never-the-less it was a good day for laughs for me...and hey, this is all about me anyways! Ha.

Grandma's facebook account

This was from yesterday, but it was probably the funniest moment of my day. During a discussion at a family party about things that we had seen from each other on Facebook during the week, my almost 80 year old grandmother mentioned that she can't always get on Facebook. She says she has a hard time time getting her password to work. After some discussion about remembering the password and so forth I said something about writing it down so she wouldn't forget. She said she did write it down....that in fact she has whole notebook filled with Facebook passwords. Hmmmm.....

Make me laugh, I dare you.

I love to laugh, it's therapeutic, but I think I have some sort of harder exterior shell than most. I get joke emails or 'funny' video clips from family and friends and while mildly amusing, I hardly ever see them as the hugely hilarious and entertaining bits of comic relief that others think they are. I don't know why that is. On Facebook I'll see others post something citing that it's a must see because they laughed their heads off (or other body parts) or even wet themselves and I'll think yeah, I want a good laugh right now...but it hardly ever happens for me. No body parts falling off anywhere, still dry. Don't get me wrong, I do have funny moments in my days...they are more in the moment kind of things. I'm challenging myself to find the funniest thing of my day to post. Well, no promises on an everyday thing to post because I'm busy and stuff, but at least this will make me think of the funniest thing in my day.